SYBR SAYS...

Every six months or so, a team of scientists from the University of Manheim in Germany, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee in the USA, puts together a list of the 500 fastest supercomputers on the planet.

The latest edition lists China as the home of the world’s fastest supercomputer. It’s called Tianhe-1A and was developed by China’s National University of Defence Technology. In a list traditionally dominated by the US, which has over 200 computers in the top 500, China comes second with 41 while India lags behind with just four, and none in the top 10.

Of course, this position is a bit deceptive, because neither country really makes the supercomputers. The hardware still comes from a single destination — Silicon Valley in the US. So, strictly speaking, it’s still the United States that is at the head of the field, even though the array that does the most in the least time is located in another country.